The Voices
Matthew Henry
The Chester nonconformist who rose before dawn for ten years to write a whole-Bible commentary plain enough for a farming family to read at the table.
Short bio
Matthew Henry was born on October 18, 1662, at Broad Oak in Flintshire, on the Welsh border — a few months after the Act of Uniformity threw his father out of the Church of England. Philip Henry was one of roughly two thousand ministers ejected in 1662 for refusing to conform. He lost his living, kept preaching where he could, and taught his children at home. Matthew was a sickly boy who is said to have been reading Bible chapters aloud with comment at three years old. He grew up in a house where family worship happened twice a day and where nonconformity had a price attached to it. He studied under Thomas Doolittle at an academy for dissenters, then went to London in 1685 to read law at Gray's Inn — a sensible career for a man whose religion barred him from the universities. He gave it up. In 1687, at twenty-four, he was privately ordained and went to Chester as minister of a Presbyterian congregation. He stayed twenty-five years. He preached twice on Sunday, catechized the children, lectured on weeknights, visited constantly, and preached in the surrounding villages and in the county jail. The congregation grew to some hundreds of communicants and built a chapel in Crook Street. He began the commentary in November 1704. His method was ordinary and brutal: rise at four or five in the morning and write before the day's work, then take up the evening after it. He wrote for the family table — for a farmer reading aloud to his household, not for a scholar. The result is not technical. It is the text explained clause by clause and then pressed home, with a gift for the memorable line that has kept it quoted for three hundred years. In 1712 he moved, reluctantly, to a congregation at Mare Street, Hackney, in London. On June 22, 1714, riding back toward Hackney after preaching in Chester, he was thrown from his horse near Nantwich. He died that night at Tarporley, aged fifty-one. He had finished through the end of Acts. Thirteen fellow ministers completed Romans through Revelation from his notes and papers, and the whole *Exposition of the Old and New Testaments* was published in six volumes. It has never gone out of print. Its readers make the case for it better than any summary can. George Whitefield read it through four times, the last time on his knees. Spurgeon told his students in *Commenting and Commentaries* that every minister ought to read it entirely and carefully through at least once. John Wesley abridged it for his people. It sits on more shelves, in more languages, than any other commentary written in English. Sources: Matthew Henry, *An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments*; J. B. Williams, *Memoirs of the Life, Character and Writings of the Rev. Matthew Henry*; C. H. Spurgeon, *Commenting and Commentaries*; *Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry*, ed. Matthew Henry Lee.
Notable works
2 listed
| Title | Year | Description |
|---|---|---|
| An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments | 1710 | — |
| Directions for Daily Communion with God | 1712 | — |
Where to find them
Their words on MannaFest
14,170 quotes across 66 books
Where this voice speaks on the site — each quote links to the verse it was chosen for.
“He had mentioned before what the reproach was that touched him thus to the quick, and here he repeats it: They say daily unto me, Where is thy God? --a reproach which was very grievous to him, both because it reflected dishonour upon God and was intended to di…”
“There were those that had injured him; against them he is plaintiff, and exhibits his complaint to him who is the avenger of wrong, praying for justice for himself and upon them. Who his enemies were with whom he had this struggle. Here was a sinful body of me…”
“In order to this he prays, " Send out thy light and thy truth; let me have this as a fruit of thy favour, which is light, and the performance of thy promise, which is truth." We need desire no more to make us happy than the good that flows from God's favour an…”
“Those that come unto God must come to him as their exceeding joy, not only as their future bliss, but as their present joy, and that not a common, but an exceeding joy, far exceeding all the joys of sense and time. The phrase, in the original, is very emphatic…”
“He then quiets himself in the believing expectation he had of giving glory to God ( Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him ) and of enjoying glory with God: He is the health of my countenance and my God. That is what we cannot too much insist upon, for it is …”
“(5.) Former experiences of God's power and goodness are strong supports to faith and powerful pleas in prayer under present calamities. See how Gideon insists upon it ( Judg. vi. 13 ): Where are all his miracles which our fathers told us of?”
“He fought for Israel, else they would have fought in vain; it was through him that they did valiantly and victoriously. It was God that planted Israel in that good land, as the careful husbandman plants a tree, from which he promises himself fruit. This is app…”
“Let him that glories glory in the Lord, and let that for ever exclude all other boasting. Let those that trust in God make their boast in him, for they know whom they have trusted; let them boast in him all the day long, for it is a subject that can never be e…”
“However, thus far was right that they looked above the instruments of their trouble and kept their eye upon God, as well knowing that their worst enemies had no power against them but what was given them from above; they own it was God that delivered them into…”
“That the heathen, the people that were strangers to the commonwealth of Israel and aliens to the covenants of promise, made them a by-word, and shook the head at them, as triumphing in their fall,”
“Concerning those that are going down every one cries, "Down with them." 5. That it was very grievous, and in a manner overwhelmed him: The shame of my face has covered me. He blushed for sin, or rather for the dishonour done to God, and then it was a holy blus…”
“There was therefore strong reason to believe that God would appear for them. As there is no trouble more grievous to a generous and ingenuous mind than reproach and calumny, so there is none more grievous to a holy gracious soul than blasphemy and dishonour do…”
“8 In God we boast all the day long, and praise thy name for ever. Some observe that most of the psalms that are entitled Maschil--psalms of instruction, are sorrowful psalms; for afflictions give instructions, and sorrow of spirit opens the ear to them. Blesse…”
“God's mercy: " O redeem us for they mercies' sake; we depend upon the goodness of thy nature, which is the glory of thy name ( Exod. xxxiv. 6 ), and upon those sure mercies of David which are conveyed by the covenant to all his spiritual seed."”
“The excellency of the management. This song was a confession with the mouth of faith in the heart concerning Christ and his church. (1.) The matter was well digested, as it well deserved: My heart is inditing it, which perhaps is meant of that Spirit of prophe…”
“(1.) He has grace, and he has it for us; Grace is poured into thy lips. By his word, his promise, his gospel, the good-will of God is made known to us and the good work of God is begun and carried on in us.”
“The word of God is the sword of the Spirit. By the promises of that word, and the grace contained in those promises, souls are made willing to submit to Jesus Christ and become his loyal subjects; by the threatenings of that word, and the judgments executed ac…”
“This is the bride, the Lamb's wife, whose graces, which are her ornaments, are compared to fine linen, clean and white ( Rev. xix. 8 ), for their purity, here to gold of Ophir, for their costliness; for, as we owe our redemption, so we owe our adorning, not to…”
“When the Gentiles, being converted to the faith of Christ, join themselves to the church, they then come with a gift, 2 Cor. viii. When with themselves they devote all they have to the honour of Christ, and the service of his kingdom, they then come with a gif…”
“(1.) This intimates a two-fold bringing of the spouse to Christ. [1.] In the conversion of souls to Christ; then they are espoused to him, privately contracted, as chaste virgins, 2 Cor. xi.”
“This promise to Christ is of the same import with that Isa. liii. 10 , He shall see his seed; and these shall be made princes in all the earth; there shall be some of all nations brought into subjection to Christ, and so made princes, made to our God kings and…”
“He is a help, to do all that for us which we need, a present help, a help found (so the word is), one whom we have found to be so, a help on which we may write Probatum est--It is tried, as Christ is called a tried stone, Isa. xxviii.”
“Let those be troubled at the troubling of the waters who build their confidence on such a floating foundation, but not those who are led to the rock that is higher than they, and find firm footing upon that rock. How well-grounded the defiance of this danger i…”
“God has assured his church of his special presence with her and concern for her; his honour is embarked in her, he has set up his tabernacle in her and has undertaken the protection of it, and therefore she shall not be moved, that is, [1.] Not destroyed, not …”
“Particularly take notice of the desolations he has made in the earth, among the enemies of his church, who thought to lay the land of Israel desolate. The destruction they designed to bring upon the church has been turned upon themselves. War is a tragedy whic…”